Advanced Manufacturing Office

The new Institute will use $70 million provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office to support and manage its programs over the next five years. Photo Credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

3D printing moves from prototype to the factory floor. In 44 hours an AMO team from Local Motors in Arizona, Cincinnati, Incorporated in Ohio, and the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee printed a working electric car using carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite. Photo credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Local Motors

The Next Generation Power Electronics National Manufacturing Innovation Institute will use $70 million provided by the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Manufacturing Office to support and manage its programs over the next five years.

Manufacturing converts a wide range of raw materials, components, and parts into finished goods that meet market expectations. The Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) partners with industry, small business, universities, and other stakeholders to identify and invest in emerging technologies with the potential to create high-quality domestic manufacturing jobs and enhance the global competitiveness of the United States.

What We Do

We partner with industry, small business, universities, regional entities, and other stakeholders to identify and invest in emerging clean energy technologies. We establish collaborative communities focused on developing and commercializing targeted technologies; play a leadership role in the national interagency Advanced Manufacturing Partnership; and encourage a culture of continuous improvement in corporate energy management. Our investments have high impact, use project diversity to spread risk, target nationally important innovation at critical decision points, and contribute to quantifiable energy savings.

By reducing the life-cycle energy consumption of manufactured goods by 50 percent over 10 years, we will support the creation of high-quality domestic manufacturing jobs and enhance the competitiveness of the United States.

Why It Matters

Manufacturing converts a wide range of raw materials, components, and parts into finished goods that meet market expectations. Game changing investments in Advanced Manufacturing—efficient, productive, highly integrated, and tightly controlled processes—have the potential to fill the innovation gap between research and full "to scale" industrial production. As an end-use sector, manufacturing is the most diverse in the U.S. economy in terms of its energy sources, foundational technologies, and the products manufacturing produces. In 2012 (unless otherwise indicated), U.S. manufacturing was responsible for 12.5% [1] of GDP, direct employment for about 12 million people [1], and 70% [2] of all business R&D performed (in 2010 and 2011); and close to 75% [3] of U.S. exports of goods; production of 17% [4] of the world's manufacturing output, and 25% [5] of U.S. energy use.